Persuasive Games for Physical Activity in App Stores: A Systematic Review

Persuasive games (PGs) are effective at motivating desired behaviour change using various strategies. Over the years, increasing research attention has been focused on developing PGs targeted at motivating behaviour change in various domains, including physical activity. This paper presents a systematic review of 45 PGs from app stores with the aim to: (1) deconstruct and highlight trends with respect to the persuasive strategies employed and the various ways the strategies were implemented; (2) examine for relationships between the strategies employed and games rating - effectiveness, (3) understand the effective genres for physical activity PGs and (3) uncover pitfalls of existing PGs. Our review showed that the liking strategy, which deals with making games visually attractive, is the most implemented persuasive strategy in physical activity PGs existing on app stores. We revealed that the three most popular genres for physical activity PGs are casual, simulation, and adventure. We found a negative correlation between the number of persuasive strategies employed and game effectiveness (app average rating) for PGs reviewed. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for developing physical activity PGs that can effectively promote behaviour change.